This disclosure relates to a high-contrast self-emissive electronic display and, more particularly, to a self-emissive electronic display that includes a switchable retarder to selectively block or permit outside light to reflect into and out of pixels of the display to improve contrast.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present techniques, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Many electronic devices include electronic displays. One form of electronic display with particularly high contrast under many conditions is a self-emissive display. Organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays and micro-light-emitting-diode (μ-LED) displays are examples of self-emissive displays that use LEDs as pixels. A self-emissive display has pixels that individually generate their own light, rather than modulating light deriving from a backlight. As such, displaying dark gray levels or the color black involve emitting very little to no light at all. Since the maximum image contrast ratio is based on the maximum amount of light that is emitted by a pixel as compared to a minimum amount of light that is emitted by the pixel, self-emissive displays generally produce images with excellent contrast ratios.
There are certain situations, however, where the contrast ratio of a self-emissive display may be less impressive. Under conditions with large quantities of outside light—such as outdoors on a bright day—the contrast ratio may be substantially lower. Under conditions like these, large quantities of outside light enter the pixels of the display and/or are reflected off of the electronic display. This adds light to both the brightest pixels of the image and the darkest pixels of the image, lowering the contrast ratio. That is, the difference between the brightest pixels and the darkest pixels may be significantly less than under conditions with less outside light. Although it may be possible to increase the amount of light emitted by the brightest pixels by increasing the drive strength of the self-emissive pixels, doing so may reduce the life of the pixels and draw substantially more energy.